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This is a guestpost by Andrew Yates. Andrew is the iOS tech lead at Buffer, a smarter way to share your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn posts. He is a super nice guy and loves to discuss and hack on all things iOS. Hit him up on Twitter @ay8s any time.

With the imminent announcement of the iPhone 5 the rumor mill is in full swing. One thing that strikes me time and again is that it seems everyone focuses on the next hardware release. What will it look like? How many megapixel will the camera feature? What will the screen resolution be?

Whilst all of this is interesting, the one thing I’ve observed over the years as an iOS guy is that changes to the operating system itself are what drive the change at Apple’s flagship product first and foremost.

As the iOS tech lead at Buffer, one thing I’ve learnt is that if you don’t keep up to date with all things iOS your product will suffer dearly in the long run. Keeping my head up particularly at this year’s World Wide Developer Conference, 5 things struck me as insights that will drive the most important changes for the future of your iPhone:

Siri, check me into The Olympic Park on Foursquare.

When Siri was originally announced it wasn't very long until an open source project popped up allowing people to add functionality to the personal assistant. Now, with the upcoming launch of iOS6 Apple added the ability to open apps using Siri. Whilst that is already very powerful, I’m convinced that the future of Siri is even brighter.

I’m convinced that in iOS7 and subsequent releases, Apple will bring out a native Siri API allowing App developers to register actions that Siri can perform. Imagine saying "Siri, Check me into The Olympic Park on Foursquare", or “Siri, Tweet my latest picture”.

Tighter interconnection between your favorite apps.

One point where I’ve found Android to be miles ahead is when it comes to connecting apps with each other. The best example is that Android allows apps to be shown in the Share Menu. So you can save to Instapaper from Flipboard, or to Readability from Zite. All this happens without any of the mentioned companies having to partner in a formal way.

The good news is, iOS6 takes us a step closer to this and brings out a new sharing menu. It will allow users to share from apps that integrate the new sharing menu to Twitter, Facebook and Email extremely seamlessly. This is something that brings us very close to what many have deemed the “future of the internet”: Web intents. I am very convinced that Apple will be at the forefront of this trend and interesting features will soon become a reality.

Throw away all that paper.

Near Field Communication (NFC) has been rumored for some time. Now that iOS6 brings "Passbook" to the device, a place to store all of your cards, coupons and tickets it's only a matter of time until Apple adds NFC to the iPhone.

This means that very soon, you will be able to use or update your Passbook with NFC by simply swiping your device at an airport, cash counter or restaurant. The current iPhone 5 speculation isn’t shy of the term either. Including NFC would also open the door to apps that have until now been unable to jump ship from Android to iOS due to the lack of the technology in iPhone. I also imagine that there will be a plethora of new startups and innovation due to Apple pushing NFC into the mainstream.

What is most interesting here, is that this also paves the way for Apple to compete with Google Wallet and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 “Fast Cards”.

Expect a shopping center on your device.

With the success of the App Store & Mac App Store, could the same system be used to purchase other physical items you'd normally buy online or grab from a shop? There have been many rumors about being able to considerably expand the use of your Apple ID to make purchases not only on iTunes & the App Stores.

As one example, Apple has been rumored to be interested in acquiring The Fancy a key rival to Pinterest. Through flicking the acquisition switch on The Fancy, Apple would be able to give its 400 million+ users a new way to add anything they want to buy straight from the iTunes Store. One thing is for sure, the Apple wallet is under way, especially as patents on it have already been granted.

iOS will fuel further innovation on your Mac.

Mountain Lion landed a few weeks ago with the addition of some very nifty features that some us might have recognized from elsewhere. Borrowed very obviously from existing iOS features, this only confirms what Apple has announced a few months ago. To sum up: One OS to rule them all.

Notification Center is now available on your Mac, something that iPhone & iPad users are already familiar with. Before that OS X gained the Mac App Store as well as Launchpad the bigger brother to iOS' Springboard.

The question now is: what other elements of iOS will they bring over to Mac? Could we see something like Siri for Mac? Or a trackpad that mimics a touchscreen even further? How about actually touching the screen in Mac? This all feeds on top of the fact that apple is due to release new Mac models in early 2013.

Looking at how Apple has approached things over the past few years, and how I’ve seen change, these are my top 5 things that I believe will happen in the near future. What would you like to see in upcoming releases from Apple? Where do you see things going from here?